Mr. Murdock SS 9
Name:
2014
French Revolution Overview
Overarching Ideas and Themes:
When/why does a revolution happen?
- When people stop believing that the societal system they
are living in is legitimate, to the point that something
absolutely must be done to contest its illegitimacy and
either: fix the system, or completely change it to make it
legitimate.
- When there is a government with the power to tax citizens, but there is a disconnect
between the people paying the taxes and the relative benefits they receive from
taxes.
 In other words, a severe disparity exists between:
• The amount of work/energy/time/money that people invest into a
system, and the relative benefits they get out of the system.
• Rights & Freedoms that humans are born with or given by the state
• Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité (Freedom, Equality, Brotherhood) as bases for Democracy
• Military might and rise of nationalism (intensely patriotic individual identification
with and attachment to one’s nation, in opposition to all other nations)
• "Vive la révolution!" (“Long live the revolution!”) The Utopian democratic republican idea
of a revolution that could spread across all of Europe.
• Age of Atlantic Revolutions: Other Atlantic Rebellions/Revolutions in Chronological
order: Geneva/Swiss, American, Dutch (Patriots), British North America (Constitution
Act), Ireland (United Irishmen Rebellion), Belgium, France (the symbol of Europe, of
absolutism, the most prominent/powerful Kingdom in Western Europe), Ireland again
(multiple rebellions in 1800s), Poland, Germany (1871), Austria, Sweden...
• Historical turning points: Eric Hobsbawm (historian) has said that the most important
revolutions in world history are the French Revolution and the Industrial Revolution
• Enlightenment philosophers ideas (Locke, Rousseau, Voltaire, Montesquieu, Kant)
- Rousseau was born in 1712 in Geneva Switzerland, wrote his novels and the Contrat
Social in the 1760s (the first Atlantic revolts occurred in Switzerland in 1653, and in
Geneva from 1707-1738, all out revolution in Switzerland by 1798)
• Changing/Evolving Systems of Government:
- Democracy
- Monarchy (with or without
- Republic
Constitution)
- Empire
- Totalitarian/
Authoritarian/Dictatorship
5 Causes of French Rev:
•
1)
Absolute Monarchy – Louis XV, XVI, Marie Antoinette
• Little connection between people and government, no 'social contract'
• Feudal system (serfs, Lords, etc.) long enforced the oppression of the poor
• Louis XVI’s predecessor, Louis XV, had reigned over France’s losses in Wars in Europe
and North America, presided over the Fall of New France and loss of virtually all North
American territory. The monarchy became very unpopular increased France’s debts.
• French monarchy seen as lavish, extravagant, wasteful, and out of touch with citizens.
1 Mr. Murdock SS 9
Name:
2014
• 1783 Charles de Calonne is appointed financial Controller General of France
• Calonne suggests taxing the Nobility, which has been previously exempt from paying taxes
- Called Assembly of Notables in 1787 to convince nobility to pay taxes, to which they
refused, making eventual financial ruin a virtual certainty.
 When a country is in a financial or food crisis, radical things happen
• 1789 Louis called the Estates-General, a traditional meeting of all three segments
(estates) of the French population, to find a solution.
2) Estate system (social inequality like Indian caste system or feudal system)
• 1st estate was Clergy of Catholic Church: ~0.5%
• 2nd estate was nobles, landowners/aristocracy: ~1.5%
• 3rd estate was ~98% of the population consisting of peasants, serfs, poor people,
bourgeoisie middle class and lower classes, merchants (like small business owners) etc.
3) Economic inequality/injustice • 3rd estate paid all the taxes for everyone. 1st and 2nd estates didn't pay any taxes (only
2% of population) even though they had the most wealth by far.
• King Louis attempted to make the 1st and 2nd estates pay taxes but was unsuccessful.
• Compare to USA/Canada today: higher income earners pay generally higher tax
amounts; they are in a higher 'tax bracket', lower income people pay less or even no
taxes. This is the opposite of the French system before the revolution.
4) Enlightenment ideas (1600s)
• John Locke/Jean-Jacques Rousseau:
- Government needs to seek/make a 'social contract' with its citizens in order to rule,
have limitations and checks/balances on power to avoid tyranny
• Certain inalienable natural rights that man is born with: Life, Health, Liberty, and Property
• Important quote: Locke affirmed concept of revolution in his 2nd Treatise on Government:
-
•
•
“…whenever the Legislators endeavor to take away, and destroy the Property of the People,
or to reduce them to Slavery under Arbitrary Power, they put themselves into a state of War
with the People, who are thereupon absolved from any farther Obedience, and are left to the
common Refuge, which God hath provided for all Men, against Force and Violence.
Whensoever therefore the Legislative shall transgress this fundamental Rule of Society; and
either by Ambition, Fear, Folly or Corruption, endeavor to grasp themselves, or put into the
hands of any other an Absolute Power over the Lives, Liberties, and Estates of the People;
By this breach of Trust they forfeit the Power, the People had put into their hands, for quite
contrary ends, and it devolved to the People, who have a Right to resume their original
Liberty.”
Montesquieu: checks and balances - Building on John Locke's Second Treatise of
Government, Montesquieu writes in the Spirit of the Laws that the executive, legislative,
and judicial duties of government should be given to different actors, so that one
government branch cannot infringe on liberty without being held in check by other
branches
Jean-Jacques Rousseau: social contract and classical republicanism
- In Rousseau's dream Republic, sovereign power and authority is exercised by a
Sovereign (eg. a Monarch) or group of people for the general will of the people as a
whole, but citizens have a direct and active voice in government, and each person
votes for what is best for all/for the state.
2 Mr. Murdock SS 9
Name:
2014
5) American and other Revolutions - "Age of Atlantic Revolutions"
• 12-13 years before the French Revolution was the American Revolution
• Taxes were not providing for the people…Government wasn't working for the people, no
representation in government, so people had no influence over their own taxation.
• A relatively small and largely untrained colonial militia overthrew the most powerful
imperial military force in the world with minimal French help, which inspired the French
Five stages of French Revolution
*Unlike American Rev, which was a top-down revolution, the French rev was bottom-up and not as organized*
1) Lead-up
• King Louis XVI called the Estates General meeting and the Third Estate wanted a
National Assembly, but the other Estates would not agree.
- (In the laws of the Ancien Régime, one couldn't decide anything without agreement of
2 of the 3 Estates.)
• The refusal of the 1st and 2nd Estates to pay taxes made a viable solution impossible, and
led to the Third Estate declaring themselves the sovereign National Assembly (the
voice of the people), which led to them being locked out of the Estates-General meeting
by the King, and in turn led to the members of the Third Estate taking the Tennis Court
Oath, which asserted the sovereignty of the national assembly and promised to draft a
constitution for France.
• King wouldn't give up power, a mob stormed the Paris Bastille prison to take weapons
and gunpowder, which was largely symbolic, and a few prisoners were released.
2) The Great Fear
• Rural countryside attacks of peasants against the manors and estates of their landlords
happened all over France.
• August Decrees freed peasant serfs of oppressive contracts with their landlords.
• Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen created by National Assembly to set
out a judicial code for France and declare the autonomous rights of the French people.
• Nicolas de Condorcet, as well as women like Olympe de Gouges asserted women's
rights at this time in response to documents that only talked about men and did not
create gender equality even though equality was a main idea and goal of the revolution.
- "This revolution will only take effect when all women become fully aware of their
deplorable condition, and of the rights they have lost in society" (De Gouges,
Declaration of the Rights of Woman and the Female Citizen)
• Assembly government controlled by moderates (Girondins), wasn't effective, it was new
and chaotic (moderate revolution)
• Girondins are in favour of limited constitutional monarchy, Jacobins are radicals who
wanted to execute the king and have a republic.
• Other absolute monarchies are nervous in Europe, make Declaration of Pillnitz, which
demands that King Louis XVI be returned to the throne of France
• National Assembly declares war on Prussia & Austria to spread revolution in Europe with
the goal of a utopian republican democratic society – an indestructible idea.
3) Reign of Terror 1792
• National Assembly was renamed National Convention, abolishes the monarchy and
declares France a Republic
3 Mr. Murdock SS 9
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2014
• 1793 Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette are tried and executed publicly in the Place de La
Concorde in Paris, for treason
• War goes badly, enemies encroach on French territory, angering French citizens
- Radicals (Jacobins) overthrow Girondins (moderates) and control the Assembly,
led by Maximilien Robespierre
- New Constitutions written in 1793
- Robespierre execute any dissenters or suspected “enemies of the Revolution” using
new Guillotine machine in Place de la Concorde in Paris
- Robespierre becomes victim of his own reign of Terror and after attempting to shoot
himself, is executed the next day by Guillotine.
4) Directory Stage (1st and 2nd Directorates)
• 1794-1799 Moderates come back in, followed by a short period of recovery
• 1795 another new Constitution is written
• 5 Directors now held executive power, controlled military and prolonged war to keep power
• General Napoleon Bonaparte was successful in Italian campaign, but the disunified
directory mismanaged the war and anarchy ensued among former convention members,
causing France's enemies to take more territory and encroach on the heart of France.
• 1799 Coup d'État by General Napoleon Bonaparte.
5) Age of Napoleon 1799-1815
• Napoleon got rid of the Directory and created the First French Consulate, with himself
leading it as the First Consul
• In 1804, Napoleon declared and crowned himself the first Emperor of the 1st French
Empire, in neo-Roman style.
• Napoleon passed Napoleonic Code, which gave people freedoms and rights, created first
national public school education system, built much-needed infrastructure like roads,
bridges, tunnels, waterways, etc.
• Napoleon: ambitious megalomaniac wanting to conquer all Europe like a Roman Caesar
• Napoleonic wars 1804-1815, during the peak of the Age of Sail.
• Some Famous battles in the Napoleonic wars: Trafalgar (the death of British Admiral
Horatio Nelson), Saxony ("The Battle of Nations"), War of 1812 (not directly connected
but occurred partly due to Napoleonic wars), Waterloo June 1815
• Napoleon should never have invaded Russia in 1812. Russia’s scorched earth policy and
extreme winter weather sealed Napoleon's fate (same thing happened to Hitler in WWII).
• 1814 Napoleon abdicates the Emperor’s throne, returns to power briefly only to be
defeated by a British-led coalition army at the Battle of Waterloo in Belgium June 1815.
• With Napoleon’s death and defeat, the monarchies of Europe forcibly returned France to a
Monarchy, which is called the Bourbon Restoration period, and it would be decades
before France was a Republic again. Napoleon’s nephew tried unsuccessfully to rule as
Emperor, there were mini-revolutions (aftershocks) as depicted in Les Misérables…
Governments of France throughout history:
Gaul (Roman Province)  Franks (Merovingians)  Capetian Dynasty  Valois Dynasty 
Bourbon Dynasty  First Republic  First Empire  Bourbon Restoration  July Monarchy
 Second Republic  Second Empire  Third Republic  Vichy France (WWII)  Provisional
Government of the French Republic  Fourth Republic  Fifth Republic (current French gov. today).
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